Minds Shine Bright run an international creative writing competition every year and publish the winning and commended writers in curated anthologies. All of our entries are blind judged, assessed against eleven criteria and considered carefully by the judge or judges.
The Minds Shine Bright anthologies are a remarkable collection and each book tells its own story and forms part of a thematic series. If you would like to see the style and level of Minds Shine Bright writers and poets visit the Minds Shine Bright bookshop and purchase one of our anthologies. Buying a Minds Shine Bright anthology enables Minds Shine Bright to offer a generous prize pool and ensures that our writers, poets and professional production team can be paid. Each anthology is carefully curated to provide a unique reading experience.
We will provide you with updated information about our next writing competition later this year.
The 2025 Minds Shine Bright International Creative Writing Competition Places is now closed. Thanks to all the writers and poets who entered.
The Places writing competition was all about putting place front and centre in storytelling and poetry. It could be the place where you live, a place that you love visiting or a place that you left behind. It should be a place that sets your imagination free, that inspires and challenges you to bring its story to life.
When we create the Places anthology and the Young Writers’ Places anthology we will make a map of the places that inspire the winning and commended stories and poems.
All winning and commended entries will be published in the Minds Shine Bright Places anthology or the Young Writers Places Anthology. Each writer will receive a print copy and an e-book copy of the anthology they are published in.
First Prize $1500
Poetry Prize $500
Short Story Prize $500
Flash Fiction Prize $500
English as a Second Language Prize $500
Young Writers Prize (15 and under) $250
Commended writers $100 (up to 3000 words) $150-200 (up to 5000 words) (25 to 30 prizes awarded) These writers will form the Places shortlist.
Young writers $50 ( Writers aged 15 and under will be considered for all major prizes in the first round of judging and then considered for publication in the Young Writers Places anthology in the second or third round of judging.)
All writers will be eligible for one major prize only however some writers may receive commendations and publication for more than one piece.
Longlisted writers will not be published. They will be given a special mention on the Minds Shine Bright website and sent an e-certificate of Recognition.
Certificates of recognition and Gifts. Ten to twelve writers will receive Certificates of Recognition and small gifts for writing that shines brightly in some way
5000 words limit
1000 words short form (flash) fiction
Shorter entries are welcome.
Entries which exceed the word limits will be disqualified.
General entry $15
Pensioner/ Student/ Concession $5
The opening date for the Places Writing Competition is Tuesday 17 December 2024 and the closing date was midnight Saturday 31 May 2025
Original unpublished work written by a person
Each entry must be original, unpublished fiction written by the submitting author. By entering the author acknowledges
Don’t include the author’s name anywhere on the entry form or as part of the filename as the competition is blind judged. Entries with the author’s name included will be disqualified. Personal information is collected on the online submission form.
Artificial Intelligence and generative AI tools must not be used
Each entry must be written in English.
Each entry must include the theme of place.
There must be no brand references or product placements, no references to celebrities, living politicians or other well-known people.
There must be no references to people that are defamatory or could be perceived to be defamatory.
No song lyrics can be included if the song is still subject to copyright.
Where writers include quotes, the sources of these quotes must be included, and the author must have the necessary permissions to use this material.
There should be no material submitted that is offensive or objectionable.
Each submission should be entered into one of three categories including: poetry, short stories and short form (flash or micro) fiction.
Eligible entries using or referring to Aboriginal or Indigenous content must be in accordance with the Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their heritage (ICIP) guidelines and to the Aboriginal or Indigenous protocols of the region or country where they have been produced. If a piece includes the lived experience of minority persons or communities, we may contact the entrant to clarify this out of respect for cultural safety. The core principles of ICIP include respect, collaboration and seeking informed permission.
There is no limit to the number of entries but each entry costs AU$15 and each new entry must be entered on a separate entry form. Only one piece of fiction or poetry can be submitted in one entry. We recommend a limit of 1 to 3 entries per writer.
There is no age limit however if you are under 18 years of age parental consent is required to enter.
All winning and commended entries will be published in the Minds Shine Bright Places anthology The Places we Live, the Places we Love and the Places we Leave or the Young Writers’ Places anthology.
Copyright remains with the author and the author grants permission for their work to be published in one of the Minds Shine Bright Places Anthologies, on the MindsShineBright.com website and on social media and in other media and communications for future promotions of the competition, and Minds Shine Bright books.
Australian Copyright Law applies.
Any entries which are deemed to be offensive, discriminatory, too graphic or do not meet community standards will be ineligible for prizes or publication.
The competition is blind judged so don’t include the writer’s name anywhere on the entry, including headers and footers or in the filename. The personal details of the writer are captured on the entry form.
Each entry is blind judged and assessed against 12 criteria for literary merit. There are two to four rounds of judging over several months to ensure that each piece is given due consideration.
The judge’s decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into.
Minds Shine Bright is not liable for late, lost, incomplete, invalid, incorrectly submitted entries, or illegible, corrupted, or misdirected entries.
All prizes are awarded on literary merit. Each entry is assessed against a set of criteria. After the initial judging is complete a second judging process occurs to select winners of the gifts and certificates of recognition and to select writers for the Young Writer’s Places Anthology.
The judge of Minds Shine Bright is Amanda Scotney, founder of Minds Shine Bright. Other arts professionals may assist in judging or moderating the competition.
The personal information requested in the entry form is required primarily so that Minds Shine Bright can provide you with any prizes or competition updates, invite you to Awards and/or other online events related to this competition and communicate with you about your entry. Communications may include editing suggestions, publication proofs, contracts or other matters relating to your entry and invitations to celebratory events such as book launches.
By entering the competition, entrants and or their parents/ legal guardians accept these terms and conditions of entry.
The competition closed on 31 May 2025
All entries prepared for blind blind judging June to October
Judging panel appointed November 2025
Four rounds of reading and judging underway November to late February
Longlisted and Shortlisted writers should be notified by late February or early March 2026
Online Awards Celebrations and the announcement of competition winners should be held in March 2026
Prize winning writers will be published in the Places Anthology and the Young Writers’ Places Anthology by Minds Shine Bright which are scheduled to be launched in October or November 2026.
This timeline is indicative only and may change due to circumstances. Any updates will be made to the Minds Shine Bright website as soon as possible.
Minds Shine Bright Confidence writing competition aims to captures and share how fiction writers explore the theme of confidence over time. Four categories including short stories, poetry, flash fiction and short scripts are included. The competition is blind judged, entries are assessed against ten criteria and there are many entries so the judging process takes several months.Once judging is complete there is an online Awards Night and once the anthology is curated, edited and designed and published there is a celebratory launch.
As writers discover and explore different elements and layers of the confidence theme we look forward to seeing how the series of Confidence anthologies evolves and what we can learn from it about our times, trends in contemporary writing and ourselves.
Confidence 2026 is planned to open in late 2025 and closer later in 2026.
In 2023 we increased our prize pool for the Confidence Writing Competition to support our aim of paying writers fairly for their work. All prizes are shown in Australian dollars. International entries are welcomed. This prize pool will be reviewed again before we open our next Confidence themed competition.
$1600 – The overall winner, plus publication in Confidence Minds Shine Bright Anthology 2023
$800 – for each of the four category winners plus publication in Confidence Minds Shine Bright Anthology 2023 (The overall winner is excluded from all other prizes) Categories include short stories, short scripts, flash fiction and poetry)
$175 – for each commended entry plus publication in Confidence Minds Shine Bright Anthology 2023
15 certificates of recognition and gifts will be sent to writers whose creativity shone in some way.
Each entry must be original, unpublished fiction or poetry written by the submitting author and included the theme of confidence in some way. Please read the full list of terms and conditions on the Terms and Conditions Page.
The Seasons writing competition has themes that relate to the external world, and imagined worlds. This competition has smaller prizes, smaller word limits and focuses on a smaller set of writers.
So far Minds Shine Bright has run two competitions included in our Seasons series, Storm and Light and Shadow. Both Storm and Light and Shadow feature beautiful covers and layouts to show case the selected stories and poems.
All prizes are awarded on literary merit. Cash prizes will be paid in Australian dollar value. A first prize of $500 will be awarded to the most outstanding piece of fiction or poetry overall. Second prize will receive $400, third prize will receive $300, fourth prize will receive $200. Commended entries will be awarded $100 each.
Winning and commended entries will form the competition Shortlist and shortlisted entries will be published in the second Minds Shine Bright Seasons series anthology Light and Shadow. Each winning and commended entry author will receive a print copy and e-book of the Light and Shadow anthology.
Longlisted entries will each receive Minds Shine Bright e-certificates of merit. Ten further entries will be awarded certificates of recognition and a small gift featuring the embroidered Minds Shine Bright logo.
Each entry must be original, unpublished fiction or poetry written by the submitting author and included the theme of Light and Shadow in some way. No brand references are allowed. The word limit for each entry is 2500 words.
Please read the full list of terms and conditions on the Seasons Terms and Conditions page.